Lonliness
by Raeghann
Summary: There is no all consuming passion for me, I am not the first person on his mind, and I doubt he even thinks about me when I am not there. His love is like weak coffee and I want espresso. His kisses are absent minded, and his love making distracted. Th


I don't normally write one shots and I don't know where this one came from, but I hope someone enjoys it. Thanks!

I sit here alone in the quiet apartment we call home. The sound of the street mingling with my day dreams as I watch the people coming to and fro. A couple embraces with the freshness of new love, and elderly couple sits side by side watching others even as I watch them. Every where I look I see them and here I sit alone. My attention turns inward to the rooms I have cleaned until they are spotless. Our bed sits in the corner covered in the rich burgundy satin I saved every spare penny for. Pillows are piled each one another thing I scrimped and saved for. The table is set for dinner, a table I had him help me pull out of the trash and I lovingly refinished. The settee I'm sitting on as I look out the window, I recovered in velvet that had been stained and I had spent the better part of a day cleaning.

He has long since given up teasing me for bringing home trash; because now he knows I can see what lies beneath the disrepair. The walls of our little room have been painted a soft golden color that enhances the wooden floors I took the pains to sand and stain.

I look around at the little haven I have attempted to create in this world of iniquity. I know he longs for fine things, for a house that is more than one room, for a servant to cook our meals and serve us. It doesn't matter that I enjoy that little task. I enjoy the look on his face when he walks in the door and dinner is ready for him. He wants new furniture, not the furniture I have remade to look new. He wants to dress me in fancy clothing and drape me with jewels.

What he doesn't know is what I want. He hasn't listened to me when I tell him I have all I want in him. He doesn't know my heart is slowly turning cold with the nights I have spent alone. I sound selfish as I think such things, but I can't help it. It is not that he works late; I appreciate all he does to make our lives better. The problem lies in the fact that when he is home he barely sees me. His mind is on his business, or he has invited one of his friends to our home.

I feel so lonely as I watch him. I feel like a ghost watching his life. He sends me an absent minded smile as he plays chess with David Jacobs, or reminisces over old times with Jamie Conlon, or reads quietly on the settee until it is time for bed. Then he bids me goodnight and falls asleep within minutes. He is too tired to stay awake for me since he has wasted all his energy on his other pursuits.

I want to scream, to cry, to do anything that might get his attention, but I know it will do no good. For the first few years after we married we quarreled bitterly over this very thing. Always ending with promises that he would try to change, but the trying never lasted. Within weeks we would be quarreling all over again.

"Oh Jack." I whisper into the pillow I have picked up without even realizing it and cradled to my chest searching for comfort. "Why did I have to love you?"

I look around at furniture that had once been broken and find it beautiful again, but I can not be made beautiful again. Every piece I bring home is one more way to ease the pain in my heart, the disappointment, because in every piece I see me, fading every day. Fading into broken disrepair. Some days I wonder, if I died and someone was there to clean and make certain dinner was ready would he notice? Do I mean anything to him? Is it so difficult to carve a little time for me, his wife?

My despair is so black it threatens to swallow me whole. My heart aches so fiercely my hands tingle with it. Anger whispers through me more tangible and easier to deal with than pain, but I push it away. Anger hasn't helped before; it didn't make him see me. It only gave me attention for a brief moment before he would storm out afraid to do me harm. I sigh in defeat and wrap my arms around myself in an attempt to seek some affection if only from myself. I know he loves me, but his love isn't enough.

There is no all consuming passion for me, I am not the first person on his mind, and I doubt he even thinks about me when I am not there. His love is like weak coffee and I want espresso. His kisses are absent minded, and his love making distracted. The most infuriating part is I can sense a piece of him, he keeps from me, a passionate person that slips out every now and then. A piece that appears only when I think I can handle this life no longer and gives me hope again that will only be dashed in a few short weeks.

My soul craves little romance, a little passion. I want to know I am the beginning and the end for him. I need to feel important and cherished. I want to know if I died tomorrow that he would at least mourn me. I shake my head bitterly, my needs do not matter, and I have been too tired to fight him for so long. The feeling of defeat has never sat well with me, but I have no other choice. I look at the lovers on the street; the two young people and remember that we too had been that sweet and loving to each other.

"Lilah?" I glance away from the window I had been staring out of to see Jamie standing in the doorway. "You didn't answer my knock I was afraid somethin' might have happened."

"No, nothing has happened." I say coolly, softly, attempting to hide my despair and the tears that are ready to spill over onto my cheeks.

"Lilah?" he asks again. "What is it what's wrong?"

"It's nothing." I say forcing my voice to be light and the smile that I plaster on my face every day. I place the pillow I had been clutching back on the settee, smoothing it into its proper place.

"Lilah tell me what is wrong. Ya can talk with me, remember I've been ya friend for years." He tells me placing his hands on my shoulders to keep me from turning away.

"You're imagining things." I tell him closing my eyes and focusing on keeping my voice steady.

Ya think I don't see what's happinin'? The light in ya is going out." He says gently brushing away a tear that has somehow escaped. "When Jack first met ya, ya were so full of life. Now I look at you and see a sadness that lingers in your eyes, a sorrow I don't understand. Ya watch us with a longing in your eyes."

How can I tell him, how to I speak the pain in my heart? We were the perfect couple eight years ago, everyone looked at us with envy. How do I tell him, I am slowly dying from a lack of affection.

"People change Jamie." I sigh, trying not to look at him, but he will not be satisfied with that. His knuckle slips under my chin and he forces me to look at him. In that steel blue gaze I feel as though I've been stripped bare.

"Talk to me." His voice speaks in that tone, the one that made all of Brooklyn cower and even now I feel compelled to respond.

"I can't Jamie, I can't." I say my voice breaking on a sob. I was afraid if I started I would never stop. "You can't understand."

"Try me." He says, his voice still commanding, and I could hold it in too longer.

"Tell you what?" I shout the pain breaking free and spilling through my lips like water through a crack in a dam. "That my love for Jack isn't enough? That no matter what I do he no longer notices me? That I spend my days trying to make our home perfect for him, only to be ignored when he finally returns? I feel like a ghost watching from the wings as he entertains himself or others. I am nothing to him."

Jamie's arms slide around me as my shoulders shake and the sobs I have stifled for so long break free. The hold me firmly perhaps a little too familiarly, but I am in so need of comfort that I do not pull away.

"Why can't he love me?" I whisper brokenly. "Why can't I be important to him?"

"You are important." Jamie tries to assure me, but I can hear the note of uncertainty. "You're the reason he works such long hours."

"He would work those hours even if I were not here." I reply bitterly." Just as he would invite you over for a get together."

He is silent now and I drop my head to his chest, his hand gently stroking my hair as I loose myself in my grief. He says nothing as he holds me, his head resting on mine, his cheek gently rubbing across my hair.

"I love ya." He finally says softly. "Had you chosen me you would have been my beginning and end. I would have loved you as Jack never could."

"Don't say such things." I whisper in shock drawing back, my eyes wide, my hand covering my mouth in surprise.

"So ya think I've been comin' round for so long to listen to Jack relive the glory days? I've been comin' to see you. Jack never deserved ya." He tells me, his voice urgent, as though he can make me see the truth, at least the truth as he sees it. "He never could love ya as ya needed to. I saw that, just as I saw ya tryin' to convince yaself he would love ya more later. He's never had any more to give ya than he did all those years ago."

"Jack is your friend Jamie." I whisper accusingly, though my heartbeat begins to quicken its pace. I loved Jamie before I ever loved Jack, but Jamie had been out of my league. "He looks at you like a brother, how can you do this?"

"Jack loves himself." He says shortly stepping away from me and looking out the window. "Jack is a narcissistic bastard that wanted you because you fueled it. He doesn't live in the real world. He's still caught in the past when women threw themselves at him and he was the King of Manhattan."

"And you're still not the King of Brooklyn?" I snap, my anger a way to cover the emotions that are flying through me. The confusion that building and the need that is hovering. "What are you suggesting that I run away with you only to find myself in the same predicament?"

"Damn it Lilah, I made a mistake all those years ago." He growls. "I watched ya and ya shy flirtin' and I let ya walk away. I wanted somethin' else I thought, but I realized I was wrong. I wanted to tell ya, but then ya were engaged to Jack………….."

He trails off as I gape at him. For the first time in all the time I have known Jamie Conlon, he is speechless. He looks at me pleadingly, begging me to understand and I realize I have never known him to be so vulnerable. His arms slip around me gently, his eyes locked on mine, and I curse myself for how right it feels.

I search his face my hands battling myself, wanting to keep the promises I've made, but needing the emotions I see in his eyes. His eyes drop from mine to my mouth that is still stuck in its shocked "O" shape. He licks his lips and bends his mouth to mine. The passion that is there explodes. If there is anything Jamie Conlon is it's a passionate man.

"Let me love ya Lilah." He whispers. " Let me give ya what Jack never will be able to."

I know I should push him away, I know I should slap him, but for the first time in years he's made me feel alive. I want to sink into his arms if it is the only way I can live without becoming a shadow in the background.

"Yes." I whisper making a decision that would damn us both.


End file.
